British Researchers Research Articles

Overcoming C. differences

British researchers have made the case that both toxic proteins secreted by Clostridium difficile—toxin A and toxin B—should be jointly targeted. The findings support strategies being pursued by Merck and Progenics Pharmaceuticals.

Chronicle of cybernetics pioneers

Rodney Brooks enjoys an account of the freewheeling group of post-war British researchers that sowed the seeds of robotics through a desire to imitate animal brains and behaviour.

News

British researchers are developing a new test for oral cancer for use by dentists and orthodontists.

Bacteriologia e medicina tropical britânicas: uma incursão a partir da Amazônia (1900-1901)

Em junho de 1899, começou a funcionar a Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. No ano seguinte, dois de seus quadros, Herbert Edward Durham (1866-1945) e Walter Myers (1872-1901), viajaram para Belém, no Brasil, para investigar a febre amarela. Uma escala da viagem, em Havana, possibilitou o encontro com os norte-americanos que aí pesquisavam também a doença. Durham e Myers traziam a hipótese da transmissão por inseto hospedeiro, à semelhança do que acontecia com a malária, cujo modo de transmissão acabara de ser decifrado por ingleses e italianos. Mas, no Brasil, mantiveram-se presos à etiologia bacteriana e não acompanharam a ruptura na abordagem da febre amarela que o programa da medicina tropical propiciava. Tal paradoxo pode ser explicado examinando-se as trajetórias prévias de Durham e Myers, que se entrelaçam à de outro investigador, Alfredo Antunes Kanthack (1863-1898), nascido na Bahia, um dos principais protagonistas da instituição da microbiologia e imunologia na Inglaterra.

Affibody vs. amyloid

Swedish and British researchers have shown that Affibodies from Affibody AB can be engineered to bind and clear toxic β-amyloid from the brains of fruit flies. With the company's help, the academics now plan to look at the Affibodies in rodent models of Alzheimer's disease.

Schizophrenia: Cognitive Theory, Research, and Therapyby BeckAaron T. , RectorNeil A. , StolarNeal , and GrantPaul . New York, Guilford Press, 2008, 420pp., $45.00

Schizophrenia: Cognitive Theory, Research, and Therapyby BeckAaron T. , RectorNeil A. , StolarNeal , and GrantPaul . New York, Guilford Press, 2008, 420pp., $45.00

Historical prerequisites of development of the allergenspecificimmunotherapy method (to centenary of discovery)

In connection with the approaching date of the centenary of the discovery by British researchers L. Noon and J. Freeman method of allergen-specific immunotherapy (ASIT) is a survey, which conducted a historical analysis of the significance of this event for the development of allergology. Studied a large number of literary sources, on the basis of which presents data on the background of the method ASIT, its essence, the authors. Compiled by a table which illustrates the basic milestones ASIT from pre-scientific stage before the modern state.

Do the Current Medical and Economic Times Dictate the Need for the “Polypill”?

The polypill concept was proposed by British researchers Nicholas Wald and Malcolm Law in their controversial article published in 2003. Their aim was to prevent cardiovascular disease by simultaneously reducing 4 cardiovascular risk factors (low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, blood pressure, serum homocysteine, and platelet function) regardless of pretreatment levels. Their polypill version was a single daily pill containing low doses of 6 drugs: a statin, a thiazide, a bblocker, an angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor, a folic acid, and aspirin. They proposed that their polypill could effectively and safely reduce myocardial infarction and stroke risk if taken by everyone aged 55 and older and everyone with existing cardiovascular disease. At this time, no polypill formulation has been licensed in Europe or America and sufficient trials have not been reported to test this novel concept. Several factors may delay successful approach of a polypill formula in the future. First of all, reasons could be due to technical difficulties in combining a variety of different drugs, and the size of a pill containing 6 drugs could be problematic. In addition, pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic, and dosing issues of any combination pill should be thoroughly investigated. Another important issue will be the financial hardship in finding sources for funding such research because there would be little enthusiasm in investing money and technical resources to develop an inexpensive polypill. However, recent studies favor some modifications to the components of the polypill, including concentration on specific indications that are common and important, such as hypertension, diabetes mellitus, post–myocardial infarction status, and heart failure. Ideally, there would be a combination of agents within a range of polypills for primary and secondary prevention, which would be expected to be available in the market during the next few years. Valentin Fuster and colleagues announced during the 2008 World Congress of Cardiology meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that the clinical testing for a 3-agent polypill in secondary prevention is imminent. The polypill variant was developed in Ferrer Laboratories (Barcelona, Spain) and will contain aspirin, a statin, and an ACE inhibitor. This combination compound will possibly be prescribed for patients who have had a myocardial infarction. In an additional study, Anthony Rodgers, the principal investigator, announced another international trial using a ‘‘red heart pill,’’ a 4-drug polypill (a statin, an ACE inhibitor, a thiazide, and aspirin) manufactured by Dr Reddy’s Laboratories (this institution was founded by Kallam Anji Reddy in 1984 in Hyderabad, India) as primary prevention in highrisk individuals. Additionally, a phase 2 pilot study sponsored by the World Health Organization with a different formulation of the red heart pill is From the Grady Cardiovascular Research Center, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA Address for correspondence: Bobby V. Khan, MD, PhD, Grady Cardiovascular Research Center, Emory University School of Medicine, 69 Jesse Hill Drive SE, #C247, Atlanta, GA 30303 E-mail: bkhan@emory.edu

Pupils' perspectives on racism and differential treatment by teachers: On stragglers, the ill and being deviant

While British educational researchers have given considerable attention to issues of racism, little attention has been given to how pupils themselves perceive differential teacher treatment and how such views relate to pupils' claims of teacher racism and racial discrimination. This article employs ethnographic data gathered from one English and two Flemish (Belgian) secondary schools to investigate pupils' perceptions of teachers' differential treatment of pupils. All schools were multi‐ethnic in character and located in inner‐city areas. The analysis of the data suggests that three ideal types of pupils were perceived as legitimate recipients of a less or more favourable teacher treatment: the ill, stragglers and deviants. This study illustrates how pupils' claims about teacher racism and racial discrimination relate to conflicts between particular pupils and their teachers over the appropriateness of their status as ill, stragglers or deviants and related role expectations. The final section discusses implications of this study for future research on processes of racism and racial discrimination in educational settings.

Diabetes in the Tropics: Race, Place and Class in India, 1880-1965

A disease predominantly of India's urban middle class and increasingly common in modern India, diabetes attracted little state medical attention either before or in the decades immediately following Indian independence in 1947. It did, however, give rise to an extensive medical literature, generated by both Indian and British doctors, pathologists and medical researchers, who understood the disease not just in terms of class susceptibility and the consequences of colonial modernity, but also in relation to racial and environmental characteristics. The rise of ‘tropical diabetes’ in India thus reflected and exemplified a wider trend towards the racialisation and tropicalisation of Indian medical thought. Despite the discovery of insulin in the early 1920s, prophylaxis and treatment of the disease in India suggested a continuing belief in a culturally distinctive approach to the disease.

DIET AND NUTRITION: Vitamin D Regulates MS Gene

Multiple sclerosis (MS), an autoimmune disease affecting some 2.5 million people worldwide, is thought to arise from a confluence of genetic and environmental factors. Dietary vitamin D intake has been associated with lower MS risk, and vitamin D deficiency has been associated with increased risk, but direct links between vitamin D and MS have not been identified. A team of Canadian and British researchers has now reported evidence that vitamin D interacts with a variant form of the HLA-DRB1 gene, which has been associated with MS. As reported in the 6 February 2009 issue of the online journal PLoS Genetics, study leader George Ebers, a clinical neurologist at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, and colleagues examined cells with two copies of the HLA-DRB*15 form of HLA-DRB1. They identified a vitamin D response element (VDRE)—a short stretch of DNA that is a signature of genes regulated by vitamin D—next to the gene. When they examined DNA from study participants they found the same VDRE sequence in each of 322 individuals with two copies of HLA-DRB1*15 (including people with and without MS), but found different VDRE sequences in DNA samples from 168 study participants without HLA-DRB1*15. The researchers also showed that the VDRE sequence found in people with HLA-DRB1*15 could bind to the vitamin D receptor, and that the HLA-DRB1 gene responded more strongly to vitamin D in cells with the HLA-DRB1*15 VDRE sequence than in cells without it. “This is the first direct evidence that vitamin D regulates the gene,” says Ebers. He says that whereas the general public has a 1 in 1,000 chance of developing MS, the estimated risk of MS is 1 in 300 for people with one copy of the HLA-DRB1*1501 gene variant, and 1 in 100 for those with two copies of HLA-DRB1*1501. The next step is determining how vitamin D and HLA-DRB1*15 might interact to modulate the autoimmune nature of MS. Epidemiologic and animal studies of MS point to involvement of the thymus gland early in development. The thymus produces T cells, a type of white blood cell involved in immune responses to foreign proteins (antigens). Each T cell is made with a unique antigen receptor that allows the immune system to react quickly to any foreign protein a person might encounter. However, T cells with antigen receptors that could respond to normal “self” proteins must be destroyed to prevent an autoimmune response. The researchers reason that a lack of vitamin D in the thymus in early life could limit this process, thus enabling “self-directed” T cells to survive and trigger an autoimmune response to the myelin sheath on nerve fibers—a classic feature of MS. The authors propose that vitamin D supplementation at critical periods during pregnancy and early childhood might reduce the risk for developing MS—a view endorsed by Bruce Hollis, a nutritional biochemist and professor of pediatrics at the Medical University of South Carolina. Whereas the Institute of Medicine recommends 200 international units of vitamin D per day (IU/day) for people under age 50, including pregnant and lactating women and infants, Hollis wrote in the December 2007 issue of the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research that as much as 6,000 IU/day might be needed to maintain adequate blood levels of the vitamin in these populations. He is currently wrapping up NIH-funded research that suggests at least 2,000 IU/day may be an optimal intake. [For more information on vitamin D deficiency, see “Benefits of Sunlight: A Bright Spot for Human Health,” EHP 116:A160–A167 (2008)]. “Many obstetricians are oblivious to their patients’ vitamin D status and falsely assume that the miniscule amount of vitamin D contained in prenatal vitamins will meet the needs of their patients,” Hollis says. “In fact that amount is not even close.” Considering that the body makes up to 20,000 IU of vitamin D when exposed to sunlight for 30 minutes on a summer day, Ebers says 2,000 IU/day “is not a dangerous amount.”

MiRNAs sounding better

British and Spanish researchers have converged on microRNA-96, or elements downstream of it, as a potential therapeutic target for age-related hearing loss, a space that has little to offer patients beyond hearing aids. Selective and timely delivery of a drug will be challenging, however.

The early history of packet switching in the UK [History of Communications

In this issue of the History Column we bring you an article by Prof. Peter Kirstein, one of the original contributors to early packet switching. We are probably all familiar with the history of the Internet, beginning with its genesis in the American-developed ARPAnet of the late 1960s and early 1970s. We may be less familiar with the contributions of British researchers, as well as those in other countries such as France, at about the same period of time, who worked closely with American researchers as well as independently in developing the packet-switching technology so fundamental to the Internet. Prof. Kirstein recounts the early activities by British engineers, led by Donald Davies of the National Physical Laboratory, the British Post Office, those of his own group at University College London, and others as well. He also ties this work into ongoing activities in the United States at the time. In future History Columns we plan to have similar articles by U.S. packet-switching pioneers on their own early activities in the field. This series of articles on the genesis of the Internet should be of great interest to all communication engineers. We commend the article following to your attention.

Binocular Vision: Defining the Historical Directions

Ever since Kepler described the image-forming properties of the eye (400 years ago) there has been a widespread belief, which remains to this day, that an object seen with one eye is always seen where it is. Predictions made by Ptolemy in the first century, Alhazen in the eleventh, and Wells in the eighteenth, and supported by Towne, Hering, and LeConte in the nineteenth century, however, are contrary to this claimed veridicality. We discuss how among eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British researchers, particularly Porterfield, Brewster, and Wheatstone, the erroneous idea continued and also why observations made by Wells were neither understood nor appreciated. Finally, we discuss recent data, obtained with a new method, that further support Wells's predictions and which show that a distinction between headcentric and relative direction tasks is needed to appreciate the predictions.

Risk and new exclusions in community mental health practice

Over the past two decades, mental health practice has become increasingly focused on assessing and managing the risks posed by service users. British researchers have made significant advances in studying the consequences of risk management for community-based health and welfare services, but in Australia this field remains largely undeveloped. Drawing on my experiences as a social worker in a Melbourne-based Crisis Assessment and Treatment Team from 1991 to 2008, the present paper offers a reflective analysis of the shift in practice orientation that has emerged through the growing prominence of risk as a foundation for intervention. Specifically, I argue that this shift has led to a narrowing of service provision and that “low-risk” clients are newly disadvantaged, often excluded from service.

British researchers have announced plans for a trial to assess the impact of lithium in motor neurone disease

British researchers have announced plans for a trial to assess the impact of lithium in motor neurone disease

INTACT MEMBRANE PROTEINS ANALYZED

BRITISH RESEARCHERS REPORT that they have analyzed intact membrane protein complexes with mass spectrometry. MS analysis of membrane proteins has been difficult because the proteins are often insoluble in the buffers used for electrospray ionization (ESI), a widely used technique for MS analysis of large proteins, and because subunits of the complexes readily dissociate. Carol V. Robinson, a chemistry professor at the University of Cambridge, and coworkers both there and at the University of Bristol avoid these problems by using nonionic detergent micelles. The micelles protect the membrane protein complex so that all of its transmembrane and cytoplasmic components reach the mass spectrometer ( Science , DOI: 10.1126/science.1159292). In the spectrometer, the detergent dissociates and releases the intact complex. “We will be able to look at membrane and soluble subunits together in the same experiment,” Robinson says. “This is really a first because in general the conditions required for both types of sub...

Sintered ferrous takes path of most resistance

Until now, high duty applications have centred on the incorporation of discrete wear resistant phases in a sintered ferrous microstructure. But British researchers have examined the emergence of a novel sintered ferrous material, containing hard particle additions, that may influence the development of wear resistant parts…

Whole-Genome Studies: You Are Wellcome

British researchers are expanding their search for genes involved in common diseases. Over the next 2 years, the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium (WTCCC) will genotype 120,000 people and probe the data for genetic markers involved in 25 disorders. Last year, the consortium provided some of the

Wpływ prawa karnego na przekonania moralne społeczeństwa w świetle wybranych badań empirycznych

This text aims to highlight the impact of criminal law on the moral beliefs of society, which, although not directly or immediately, considerably affect public attitudes. In support of this view, the author cites the results of four studies by British and German researchers that answer the question of whether the knowledge or suggestions of other members of society influence people’s moral attitudes. Analysing the information obtained through experiments, the author explains the dependence of the change in moral attitudes under the influence of knowledge of the actual state of the law, but mainly under the influence of peers and other opinions. In conclusion, Barbara Szamota-Saeki also draws attention to the impact that changes leading to selected types of crimes being decriminalised or liberalised had on social morale, the impact that the severity of punishments had on the degree of social acceptance of these acts, and the state of social knowledge of criminal law in Poland and other countries. The article also stresses that the best way to study the impact of criminal law on social beliefs is through natural experiments, which will elucidate changes over the years.